Project Objective

The RBDC Agricultural Department asked us to find how and why potato yield may be negatively affected. Precipitation amount was of most concern, due to the tempermental nature of potato moisture. The plots of interest are in counties in Southeast Idaho - Bingham, Jefferson, Madison, and Teton.

Research Question:

What variable(s) affect the potato yield in Southeast Idaho?

Data Collection Process

How:

• Investigated which weather stations were publicly available
• Identified what stations had all of the information needed (locations, precipitation, temperature, dates recorded)
• Each group member pulled data from local stations in each of the given counties

Data Collection Process

Weather Data Sources:

• RIEM
• Rwunderground
  • API Keys
  • Daily Limit to pull
• NOAA

Potato Data Source:

• United States Department of Agriculture National Agriculture Statistics Service

Data Wrangling

• Temperature Disparity
• Precipitation converted into inches
• Potato yield represented by 100 weight/acre

All variables were merged to create a concise dataset.

Data Table

Obstacles

• Inaccurate precipitation recordings (Rwunderground)
• Precipitation in milimetres
• How to manipulate the temperature disparity

Precipitation Model

Temperature Model:

Combined Model:

Future Directions

• Weather data should be collected on an individual basis
  • Self-monitored temperature and precipitation gauge
• Moisture levels calculated instead of just precipitation
  • Soil moisture probe
• Information can be used in the future
  • Attributed to other variables that may be of personal interest (i.e. fertilizer type, etc.)